One Super Bowl Makes History, Two Creates a Dynasty

Mike Macdonald and Sam Darnold joined a small club of Super Bowl winners, but the Seahawks must capitalize on their moment and win another soon to be considered legends

The Seattle Seahawks just won the 60th Super Bowl and out of those previous winners only about 15-percent of those champions stand out for being franchises that won at least twice in a three-year span. If the Seahawks want to stand the test of time, then Mike Macdonald must do what Pete Carroll couldn’t at the end of Super Bowl XLIX and join these teams by leading Seattle to another Super Bowl championship in either or both of the next two seasons:

• 1966-1967 Packers (Super Bowl I and II)

• 1972-1973 Dolphins (Super Bowl VII and VIII)

• 1974-1975 Steelers (Super Bowl IX and X)

• 1978-1979 Steelers (Super Bowl XIII and XIV)

• 1988-1989 49ers (Super Bowl XXIII and XXIV)

• 1992-1993, 1995 Cowboys Super Bowl XXVII, XXVIII, and XXX)

• 1997-1998 Broncos (Super Bowl XXXII and XXXIII)

• 2001, 2003-2004 Patriots (Super Bowl XXXVI, XXXVIII, and XXXIX)

• 2014, 2016, 2018 Patriots (Super Bowl XLIX, LI, and LIII)

• 2022-2023 Chiefs (Super Bowl LVII and LVIII)

It is no coincidence that the head coaches and quarterbacks of these teams in particular stand out even 50 years later.

This is one of those Seaside Joe newsletters that covers grounds of NFL history that won’t often touch on Seattle’s own past, but is intended to have us thinking about the defending Super Bowl champion Seahawks the entire time because this is what their legacy could be if they win again and also cautionary tales they must heed to avoid being forgotten or written off as a fluke by those writing about history in the future.

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They won multiple Super Bowls in a 3-season span:

Vince Lombardi and Bart Starr; Don Shula; Chuck Noll and Terry Bradshaw; Bill Walsh and Joe Montana; Jimmy Johnson and Troy Aikman; Mike Shanahan and John Elway; Bill Belichick and Tom Brady; Andy Reid and Patrick Mahomes.

Names like these in football are the same as names like Marlon Brando, Spencer Tracy, and Gary Cooper in Hollywood. There have been thousands of accomplished actors since these ones, but even Gen Z still knows these names despite their success coming 70 to 90 years ago. You didn’t need to see Captains Courageous (1937) to know the name Spencer Tracy or Morning Glory (1933) to know the name Katherine Hepburn.

They are synonymous with the culture, just as Lombardi is with coaching and Montana is with quarterbacking.

If Coach Reid doesn’t have the same impact as Coach Lombardi, it could be for a number of reasons, including the difference in eras and the degradation of mono-culture. In the same way that “Drake” will never be “Michael Jackson” regardless of how many number one hits are on his resume.

That’s hardly the only reason the comparison is unfair, but it’s one of them. To Reid’s credit and Belichick’s credit and Carroll’s credit, they had to wade through a much larger pool of competitors than the 15-team NFL, 14-game schedule, and two-part playoffs that Lombardi dealt with in Green Bay 50 years ago.

However, just wait another 50 years and I believe what’s left of NFL fans in 2076 will revere the Mahomes-Reid Chiefs teams in a similar light to Lombardi-Starr and Walsh-Montana. If anything, today’s younger generations and tomorrow’s NFL fans will hold Mahomes in higher regard than any quarterback before him.

That’s what is at stake for Mike Macdonald and Sam Darnold if they can achieve back-to-back Super Bowl wins, or at least hoist another Reid Lombardi Trophy by the 2027 season.

For whatever reason, winning a second Super Bowl four or five years later, sometimes even if it’s with the same coach and quarterback, hasn’t guaranteed the same long-lasting impact as those 10 teams above.

Dynasty? More like Nice Try-nasty

These are teams that won multiple Super Bowls in the same era, but spread apart by at least three years between championships. These winners just don’t hit as hard as those other examples when fans talk about the best teams, head coaches, and quarterbacks of NFL Past.

1976, 1980, 1983 Raiders

John Madden is perhaps not just A legend, but THE legend, because I don’t foresee that Nicolas Cage will ever play Chuck Noll or Joe Gibbs in a movie.

However, Madden is mostly such a character because he dipped out so early in his career, retiring at age 42 and making a bigger name for himself as a broadcaster and video game icon than as a head coach.

People quote “Monday Night” Madden more anything he said during his time with the Raiders.

This wasn’t the case for Ken Stabler. Despite being an MVP and a Hall of Famer, Stabler’s name doesn’t resonate with fans like other Super Bowl-winning quarterbacks, which is clear in the fact that it took him almost 20 years to be inducted into the Hall of Fame. Had the Raiders beaten the Broncos in the 1978 NFC Championship, a close game with a controversial fumble by Denver, we might have a much different opinion of Stabler.

In similar fashion, the Raiders won the Super Bowl in 1980 and 1983. They even did it with the same head coach and quarterback, Tom Flores and Jim Plunkett, but the duo is more well-known for being two-time Super Bowl champions with little renown than they are for being two-time Super Bowl champions.

If Flores had retired instead of taking the Seahawks job (and leading them to their worst season in franchise history in 1992), it might not have taken 27 years to reach the Hall of Fame. Cool jacket, though.

1981, 1984, 1994 49ers

This probably looks crazy at first sight because the 49ers were the “team of the 80s”, right? Yes, of the ENTIRE eighties. But when you take out the 1988-89 teams that had Jerry Rice, the picture of who has a long-lasting legacy besides Montana and Walsh from those earlier teams is murky.

Were it not for Rice—the 49er you really remember from that decade—and winning the Super Bowls in 1988 and 1989, to what degree are we still talking about San Francisco’s earlier Super Bowl players 40 years later?

Because we barely talk about Roger Craig, Dwight Clark, and Wendell Tyler.

Yes, the 1984 49ers team that went 15-1 is one of the best teams of all-time and in that respect they are legendary. In the same way that the 1985 Bears are legendary…even more so than the ‘84 49ers. I’m sure Mike Ditka and Jim McMahon would tell you that their legacies took major blows by choking in the playoffs in 1986 and 1987, not hitting a prove-it shot.

To become THE Joe Montana, winning two more Super Bowls back-to-back in ‘88 and ‘89, that’s what solidified his true legendary status.

I think this theory is further cemented by the fact that although George Seifert won two Super Bowls as head coach of the 49ers (1989 and 1994), and left the 49ers with a record of 98-30 (a higher winning% than Madden and Lombardi), he is not in the Hall of Fame.

Ronnie Lott is shocked that nobody mentions Seifert’s name anymore, even around the 49ers facilities and among the fandom.

Had the 49ers not choked against the Giants in the 1990 NFC Championship game, he probably would be a Hall of Famer and he could have the same number of Super Bowl wins as Walsh.

In the same vein, Seifert and one-time Super Bowl-winner Steve Young lost back-to-back NFC Championship games to the Cowboys. Win either of those games and then another the Super Bowl, combined with their 1994 Super Bowl championship, and the long-term narrative changes dramatically.

Would you rather win two Super Bowls and miss the playoffs for the next ten years or win one Super Bowl and reach the playoffs for the next ten years but never win a second Super Bowl?

1981, 1987, 1991 Redskins

Joe Gibbs is one of those “you had to be there” legendary coaches, whereas Lombardi and Walsh had their lessons, reputations, and legacies leave ripple effects for decades, including up until today. He suffers from “never had a franchise quarterback” syndrome and I think a lot of NFL fans born after 1990 have never heard of him.

Between Joe Thiesmann, Doug Williams, Jay Schroeder, and Mark Rypien, the quarterbacks who played for Gibbs could not establish their careers as starters — let alone as stars — after winning the Super Bowl. Theismann had an unlucky break, but even then was already a quarterback in his mid-30s and his career wasn’t going to go much longer.

A franchise quarterback is sort of like the totem that Leonardo DiCaprio’s character spins in Inception. Without one, you’ll never know if being called the most dominant team in the NFL was all a dream or actual reality.

A similar case separated by many more years between Super Bowls would be the 2000 and 2012 Ravens. Because neither of those teams had a quarterback who would continue to return for the next five years and put the team on his back for perennial playoff runs, they just faded in our memories to some degree. The 2000 Ravens will always be praised for having an all-time defense, but the 2012 version is one of the most forgettable Super Bowl champions in history.

In NBA terms, they remind me of the 2003-2004 Detroit Pistons, a championship team whose best player was…Ben Wallace?

So it is mutually beneficial to Macdonald and Darnold that they continue to have success together. Fans remember pairs with more regularity than they remember individuals; the one team excepted in those dynasty teams from mentioning both HC and QB was the 1972-1973 Dolphins because although Bob Griese is a Hall of Famer and Earl Morrall won an MVP, splitting time between the two in Miami lessened their impact as being reasons for winning the Super Bowl.

In contrast, Terry Bradshaw and Troy Aikman won at least three Super Bowls as the starting quarterbacks of their teams and can always claim, “I did that”.

1986, 1990 Giants

Another head coach-quarterback combo that won two Super Bowls together, Bill Parcells is certainly in the conversation as best head coach of his generation (although hindsight suggests that because Bill Belichick was so much more successful as a head coach, maybe it was the Giants defensive coordinator deserving of more credit) but Phil Simms is probably more hated as a broadcaster than he is respected as a quarterback.

Perhaps because the Giants were able to win their second Super Bowl with Jeff Hostetler starting every playoff game.

New York was mediocre in the seasons around their two Super Bowl wins, with the exception of 1989 when the Giants lost to the Rams in overtime of the divisional round. They’re never going to get around the 49ers in the NFC Championship that year, however, a team that beat their playoff opponents by a combined score of 126-26. That’s why we still talk about those two 49ers teams:

Between the 1988-1989 playoffs, Rice caught 40 passes for 726 yards, and 11 touchdowns (!!) in six games.

It’s not hard to see something similar happening for reigning Defensive Offensive Player of the Year, Jaxon Smith-Njigba.

Although JSN had a modest 199 yards in three playoff games, his historic regular season totals and his 153-yard performance in the NFC Championship game emphasizes how capable he is of setting more individual records in the future as a receiver who only recently turned 24.

Not to compare Smith-Njigba to Jerry Rice, but if the Seahawks win the next Super Bowl and JSN has 500 yards in the playoffs (not unrealistic, especially if Seattle has to play four games), that’s another reason to believe that the NFL will be acknowledging this team as a dynasty even 40 or 50 years from now.

2005, 2008 Steelers

Seahawks fans take great pleasure in pointing out that the mid-2000s Steelers teams are more remembered for wasted potential and leading into Mike Tomlin’s overrated consistency-to-be-above-average than thought of as a dynasty.

First, the two Super Bowl wins were split between two head coaches, one being Bill Cowher and the other being Tomlin. Cowher was really just “Jeff Fisher” until he won the Super Bowl in year 14 as the head coach and then smartly retired a year later before his 50th birthday.

Then Tomlin takes over and let’s us see what it’s like when a head coach goes 17 more seasons after winning the Super Bowl without winning another. Had the Steelers beat Aaron Rodgers in 2010, the way we talk about Ben Roethlisberger and Tomlin’s Hall of Fame candidacy would be very different.

Both are probably going to get in anyway (for longevity reasons) but three Super Bowl wins for Roethlisberger and two for Tomlin would make each of them a lock.

2007, 2011 Giants

This one is pretty easy to explain. The Giants weren’t even good regular season teams in 2007 and 2011 and neither Tom Coughlin nor Eli Manning are outstanding at their jobs relative to their peers.

The Giants were much better in 2008, the year after winning the Super Bowl, going 12-4 and outscoring opponents by 133 points, the best mark in the NFC. Had Manning not been so terrible against the Eagles in their only playoff game that year, and then beaten the Cardinals and Steelers, we’d talk about him and his Giants teams very differently today.

Darnold has had to answer to critics too, even on the way to and after winning the Super Bowl.

And I’m not setting him up to be called “the next Eli Manning” if he wins another but doesn’t consistently get regular season accolades or reach the playoffs in the way that the Giants quarterback rarely repeated his successes. However, Darnold is just a one-time Super Bowl winner and has now had two good years after six bad ones.

If Darnold is mediocre for the next three seasons and then wins a Super Bowl in 2029, people will just call it another fluke. If he wins the next one however, people will call it a pattern and acknowledge Darnold as the catalyst.

Do Seahawks fans give Darnold enough credit for winning the Super Bowl or do you think he’s being undervalued, even in the local fan community?

The next 2 seasons are SO IMPORTANT for Seahawks

This wraps up the section for teams that won multiple Super Bowls but not close enough together to be timeless and the difference between these teams and the ones that had “dynasties” could not be more obvious, right? It’s as obvious as the difference between head coaches of the same franchise that won Super Bowls close together, like Walsh vs. Seifert and Johnson vs. Switzer.

Two is better than one, and three is no comparison to two.

I could go on and on about teams that won one Super Bowl and how much different their legacies would be if they had closed the deal on a second (Seahawks included), but this newsletter has already runneth over the cup.

If the Seahawks don’t win the next Super Bowl or the one after that, I won’t think any less of the team from 2025. It won’t tarnish their accomplishments or anything like that. But the opportunity to strike is now if Macdonald, Darnold, JSN, and many others don’t just want to be remembered for winning a Super Bowl (as many NFLers have) but to have actually owned an entire era, not just a single season.

To become synonymous with football, not just football in 2025.

Seaside Joe 2633